Chuck, people that want to "club" or "kill" those that "may" be a threat are usually too scared to think correctly. It takes a lot of courage to take a risk and do the smart thing, much less the "right" thing. Sometimes the smart thing is to use overwhelming, deadly force. Many times it is NOT.
From your "American Indian" analogy, you evidently advocate using deadly force against almost every possible terrorist, terrorist supporter or nation that may be inclined to support terrorism. The problem with your simply stated, and simple to understand, approach to the reality of terrorism is simply, and listen carefully here, IT JUST FRIGGEN DOESN'T WORK.
This ain't the wild west where we have rifles and numbers and the Indians had muskets and were few; these are people who have the means, the numbers and the will to inflict upon us a "death of a thousand cuts."
These aren't people running around in tribes; these are people that blend in with and hide among many who are totally innocent. Are you suggesting we wipe out any who "look like" the small minority of people who have actually committed terrorist acts?
The world has become intolerant of "wiping out" the tribe and taking their land, oil, or other natural resources; we cannot politically or militarily wipe out the Muslims in the world unless we're willing to murder hundreds of millions of innocent, men, women and small children. Are you willing to attempt that, and are you willing to live in the hostile world of nations and peoples that will survive that nuclear holocost? If you are, then what exactly have we "won?" What kind of life do you think our children would live after that action?
If you think that I, and people that think like me, are namby pamby, "peaceniks" then maybe you ought to think again. People like me are ready, willing and able to fight to the death when it's necessary, when it counts and when called upon. What we're not ready to do is to fight to the death when it only makes things worse. Look at Israel/Palestine again. Your, and Bush's course is counterproductive and foolish.
In 10 years or less we'll count up the American dead in Iraq and ask ourselves what they died for. And we won't have an answer. It certainly isn't worth the cost of making a few of us deceive ourselves into believing that we're making the world or this country safer and it won't get us the oil control that we're after. The simple real truth is that NO NATION CAN SUCCESSFULLY OCCUPY A NATION OF STRONG AND PROUD PEOPLE WITHOUT DYING IN LARGE NUMBERS. In the end the cost will be too great and we will fail. If we're trying to change them into "lookalike us," that's an even sillier and less likely outcome.
That's the fact, Jack.
PS. Do you know what our buddies, the American forces, can do to a ville that saw things the VC way? It's all bad, whether it's the NVA/VC doing the killing of innocents, or whether it's some Americans with rifles, artillery, air strikes or choppers. The people die just as dead, the orphans remember just as long, the widows and mothers grieve just as hard, and the last breaths of the dying are filled with the same pain.
If you really looked into the history of the Vietnam war as an impartial observer, you might be suprised which side of the conflict you'd have favored, but then people rarely have the ability to see the other side clearly, or at all.
PSS. Nothing makes Pol Pot and Cambodia look like a walk in the park.
PSSS. I may sound a little like Jane Fonda to you, Chuck, but then I've earned the right to sound a little like that witch, and I earned it the hard way. Don't try to pin that pansy label on me. |
